Millbrae Welcomes Foreign Diplomats

Rolando Ortega, consul general at the Chilean Consulate in San Francisco, visited Millbrae for the first time and introduced himself to city officials on Feb. 28, pledging to rekindle Millbrae’s sister-city relationship with La Serena, Chile.

The honorary consul of Malta, Louis J. Vella, who fraternizes with city representatives often, and even has an office in Millbrae, met Ortega at a diplomatic function in San Francisco and informed him of Chile’s relationship with Millbrae. 

“We’ll try to foster the sister-city agreement,” Ortega said. “Sometimes it’s not easy because it’s difficult find a contact point [in Chile] in order to develop activities.”

La Serena and Millbrae have been sister cities since 1963, and in 1971 Mills and Capuchino high schools started a student exchange program with La Serena and vice versa for a total of eight trips up to now.

The last trip was during the 2002-2003 scholastic winter break when eight Mills students from an AP Spanish class spent 12 days in La Serena.

“We should start by having students email pen-pals in Chile, and after they make friends, it will be easier to organize trips,” said Faye Dawdy, who planned and organized the last trip to Chile.

And, the relationship extends beyond student exchange programs. In 1999, Tom Dawdy, chair of the Sister Cities Commission, and the Rotary Club coordinated a trip to Chile with American doctors to perform cleft palate operations in La Serena.

However, in the last few years, communication between the two sister cities dwindled. 

“We had a very strong relationship for many years,” said council member Nadia Holober. 

But recently, Holober said, it’s been difficult to contact officials in La Serena as there is no structured commission like in Millbrae.

“We’d like to see the relationship with La Serena blossom into what it has been,” she said.

Ortega vowed to help Millbrae reestablish a friendship with La Serena and act as a liaison between the two cities.